Tributes have been paid to Coventry’s first female funeral director Muriel Grimmett, who has died at the age of 86.

Muriel took over at well-known family funeral firm Grimmett & Timms in 1982 when her husband Gordon died suddenly on holiday in Tenerife.

She had originally planned to manage the Albany Road firm and not take part in funerals herself until one client said she really wanted Muriel to be there.

Muriel Grimmett

She remained at the helm of Grimmett & Timms until 1996 when the firm was sold but continued to work there until 2006.

When she left, Darren Lloyd, of Allesley family firm AJ Lloyd, asked her in for a cup of tea and she joined the company, going into work almost every day.

Muriel’s son Graham Grimmett said: “My mother’s story is rooted in the city in which she lived for all of her long and productive life. It is a Coventry story par excellence.”

Muriel was born in Gulson Road hospital on April 30 1931 and in 1940 as a nine-year-old girl her terraced family home in Clay Lane, Ball Hill, was destroyed by a German Luftwaffe bomb as she slept in the air raid shelter at the bottom of the garden with her parents and sisters.

“The bomb blast literally shook the earth they were under and they emerged safely a few hours later covered in dust and dirt,” said Graham.

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Although she passed the 11-plus entitling her to go to grammar school, a modest family income meant she instead attended her local school in Whoberley.

Muriel trained as a secretary and got a job at Coventry Gauge & Tool before moving to car maker Standard Triumph.

In September 1951 she married Gordon Grimmett, a local funeral director, and the couple had three children, Jennifer, Julie and Graham. Two other children died during complications in childbirth.

Speaking about the family funeral business, Graham said: “The undertaking enterprise was established by my colourful late grandfather Jack Grimmett, a taxi driver, who set it up in his front room one day in their house in Mowbray Street in Stoke, near to the old football ground at Highfield Road, much to the consternation of his wife Eileen, my late paternal grandmother.

“Under the tutelage of my father, the business moved to Earlsdon and for many years my mum helped my father at Grimmett &amp; Timms, answering the phone, doing the admin and typing, keeping things ticking over.

“In 1982 my father died suddenly of a heart attack and in a moment my mother’s circumstances had changed.

“In the perfect meshing of opportunity and personality style, she stepped out from behind a desk and into a funeral cortege and her life entered a new phase.”

Muriel Grimmett

Graham said that his mother’s personal life blossomed in 1984 when she met widower Ken Offley and the couple married in 1987.

“Ken would prove to be a brilliantly supportive husband, friend and confidante in a marriage that lasted 25 years,” said Graham.

“He was the power behind the throne, enabling her to attack with gusto the professional challenges that came her way during the years ahead.”

Graham added: “My mother had the gift of an unfussy and natural compassion that resonated deeply with honest, decent Coventry folk. She was one of them.

“She could draw out the thorn, attenuate the pangs and dislocations of the trauma of a family bereavement and the ordeal and rite of passage of a funeral in the public gaze when people are compelled to face the finality of death in a loved one and the sudden realignment of family trees.

“She had an extraordinary ordinariness. She conducted herself with such grace and simplicity that mourners felt comforted and reassured.

“She was able to help them in a crisis and they do not easily forget such moments. It was a gift.”

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Describing her as a “benevolent matriarch”, Graham said Muriel was “unfailingly supportive” to all, including her step-children and their families.

In addition to her professional life Muriel was a church warden at St James’ Church in Styvechale in the 1980s and more recently a server and steward at Coventry Cathedral.

Graham said his mother “carried on working right to the end” and “endured the indignities and suffering of cancer with predictable stoicism and moral courage”.

Even into ‘the eleventh hour of her life’ she would still conduct funerals as mourners insisted on her being there.

Graham said: “I truly believe she will be remembered for a generation as one of Coventry’s finest people and rightly so.

“On a personal note, I speak for my family when I say that, while enduring the pangs of grief right now, I am confident that the treasure trove I have of experiences and times spent with my wonderful mother down the years will be condensed into a distillate of enduring love, a continuing source of nourishment for a grieving son.”

Muriel’s funeral will be held in Coventry Cathedral on November 16 at 12 noon, followed by cremation at Canley Crematorium.

Family flowers only are requested, donations if desired to Coventry Cathedral.